Pompeo to make 4th trip to N. Korea next week: Yonhap

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he will travel to North Korea again next week to continue negotiations on the dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Pompeo also announced the appointment of Ford Vice President Stephen Biegun as U.S. special representative for North Korea, saying the two will travel to Pyongyang together. "Steve will direct U.S. policy towards North Korea and lead our efforts to achieve President Trump's goal of the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea, as agreed to by Chairman Kim Jong-un," Pompeo said at the State Department.

"He and I will be traveling to North Korea next week to make further diplomatic progress towards our objective," he added, without disclosing the dates.'

The U.S. and North Korea have been in talks to implement an agreement reached by Trump and Kim at their landmark June meeting in Singapore. The deal calls for the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S.

In working out the details, however, the two sides have appeared to disagree on which steps to take first, with Washington demanding full disclosure of the North's nuclear arsenal and Pyongyang pushing a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice.

Tensions are also apparent over the issue of sanctions on North Korea. The U.S. has vowed to keep the sanctions in place until the North denuclearizes. This month alone, it announced three sets of unilateral sanctions aimed at cutting off North Korea's illicit trade. Pyongyang has repeatedly slammed the international sanctions campaign. Last week Kim called it "brigandish" action by "hostile forces."
(Yonhap)